I recently picked up from the library More Than Likely, the memoirs of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who wrote sitcoms The Likely Lads, Porridge and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet - they were hired as script doctors for NSNA.
A chapter is devoted to this. One thing; I understood that Connery had requested their participation. According to this, the pair met director Irvin Kershner while he was finishing up The Empire Strikes Back and about to start Bond; they promptly asked if he wanted a rewrite, he said yes, they heard nothing back. Weeks - presumably - went by and disillusioned by their current project, they got their agent to ask again if they needed any help, and they said yes. So that's one rubbish production, where the saviours of the film have to blag their way on to it, the team didn't even have the nouse to arrange that themselves.
Clement and La Frenais saved the movie and made it a blockbuster. I'm not saying it's any good from our point of view. I'm saying, the use of easy comedy in much of the early scenes, with M, then at Shrublands, or with Algy the Armourer, then the inclusion of Rowan Atkinson, all this stuff would have reassured cinema audiences that the film they were watching was okay and not hopeless.
That said... the pair are comedy writers. It's the writing of easy comedy that does it for the film, because there is no sense of genuine jeopardy at all. In Porridge, when the felons go after someone who's nicked a watch, you know they won't really get beaten up or knifed, it's still quite cosy. Nobody dies, and so it is in this Bond film, it's a comedy and the lack of teeth begins to pall. You also have to wonder if writers better suited to a 30 minute show can manage the two-hour dynamic - and this may be the reason the film falls off a cliff at the half-way point, that and the fact that the writers weren't brought on to do the action, and usually the second half of an action film has more action in it.
You'll likely know how the writers changed the opening of the film. In the original, 'As written it was a jousting tournament between a black knight and a white knight - a fake out where you think you're in Ye Olden Days, then find out it's a theme park in the present day.' Clement told the director that 'all they would see for five minutes would be two stunt men in armour beating the crap out of each other until eventually the victor took off his tin helmet and we aw who it was [Bond]. Kersh stroked his goatee still more.'
This is the only time that original opening has been sold to me. It would have made a big impact on the audience: Hey, I thought this was a Bond film?! Two knights on horseback against a sheer blue sky, like something from Olivier's Henry V! It would have been unlike anything else in a Bond movie even to this day. Not saying I disagree with Dick Clement, however. You would have to get around the idea that Connery's Bond would take part in a historical reenactment, and you simply couldn't. What is crazy however, is how the director seems to have had no real input or ideas of his own for this film, I know in recent years directors seem to have too much input, to the point of being co-writes, but even so... You do get this impression generally, that motorbike chase (where Bond in a helmet might have offered some symmetry with the original pre-credits), well, in Kershner's plan it was to actually fly over houses, I mean, really? When it was delivered, it didn't have the wings, so that part got canned.
Finally, Clement and La Frenais describe the writing mess that was NSNA. Incidentally, this wasn't the first Bond they'd worked on; they also helped with Moonraker on the scenes in Brazil but due to budgetary restrictions a lot of the Brazil stuff got canned.
Connery was furious as he'd expected the script to be sorted by this time but it hadn't - similar to what had happened to him on the movie Cuba. For a man who didn't suffer fools, he seems a fool himself to sign on before he was satisfied with the script, but then his main motive was £3m payday, so we should all be so foolish. Says Clement re the script stipulations, 'nothing in the film could echo the style and hallmark of Saltzman and Broccoli's previous Bond movies. A clause was inserted saying the director could 'only shoot the book as written'. So one screenplay had been delivered that was almost a scene-by-scene copy of the book. It was, of course, hopeless. Francis Ford Coppola, brother to the producers' wife, Talia Shire, had allegedly written another version, though we never saw it. Every new scene and to be okayed by the producer, the director and the star. This much was fairly normal but then had to be scrutinised by the insurers, in constant terror of provoking a lawsuit.'
As for, their re-written opener, Bond on a training exercise, you may also know it won a round of applause in post-production, accompanied as it was by a ticking stopwatch to induce tension. This was ruined when the song instead was played over it - the writers are rightly annoyed at this, but don't seem to realise they'd fallen foul of another contractual issue - the song had to be given to Herb Albert (why was this? Did Michel Legrand write it anyway?) and it was so duff you had to bury it over the opening credits.
With all this in mind it's no surprise the film turned out the way it did. I wouldn't mind reading Lorenzo Semple's script actually. (Or Coppola's). But if you look up this film on Wikipedia, it's all praise - you'd think it was one of the best Bond movies, and if I recall there's no real mention of Clement and La Frenais' contribution.
I expect going by my Colonel Sun thread, a couple of you are going to pop and say 'Do you know, Napoleon, you've convinced me to sit down and rewatch this film!'
For my part, I very much enjoyed A View to a Kill when it came out, it really hit the spot. True, it's a bit of a victory lap for Rog but it hits the right notes - there's plenty of wit and interest in the early stages of the movie. Some great use of locations. Moore looks old in some scenes but in others - in Paris, for instance, he looks great, the cooler clime seems to agree with him.
I'm a bit mystified why Moonraker is allowed to be such a guilty pleasure while this one isn't. May Day is surely more plausible an assassin than Jaws, though I like them both. I much prefer her and Zorin to the villains in the previous two movies. We're back to a linear, straightforward plot. Everything is more streamlined, cooler. True, the cinematography looks a bit plain, especially in comparison with Moonraker, but that was very much the mid-80s for you, they tried to make things look almost less lush, less cinematic to gain realism. The music has a kick to it.
Perhaps they could have made Frisco a bit warmer and sunnier looking.
One quibble I noticed decades down the line is that Bond can basically have Zorin arrested very early on, certainly after he murders Tibbett, and also after the fire in Frisco's City Hall. Instead, it's like he forgets he's a British agent and has to be a Hitchcock hero who can't rely on the police at all, but is rather pitted against them. I don't find the comparisons in Goldfinger very useful, the stars and locations are different generally, but at least in that film there's a reason Bond can't raise the alarm once he knows for sure the villain is a bad guy - he's being held hostage. That said, that film also has problems in the end; if Bond is able to tip off Pussy Galore about the attack, who in turn is able to tip off the authorities, why do the US authorities let it go ahead and very nearly succeed?
Yeah I have thought before that the end of AVTAK is awkward as you have to ignore that Bond could just call the police, especially as he's heading to the mine at the end, in his fire engine complete with emergency radio!
That said, that film also has problems in the end; if Bond is able to tip off Pussy Galore about the attack, who in turn is able to tip off the authorities, why do the US authorities let it go ahead and very nearly succeed?
Although it's not said in the film, I think a decent explanation for that is that they're now aware that Goldfinger has a nuclear bomb and their top priority is to secure that: they can't be sure it's at his ranch so they need to let him bring it out into the open. Of course they then balls it up pretty badly: only getting to the device with three/seven more ticks to go, and they manage to let Goldfinger himself escape. Everyone (including Bond) in this film is borderline incompetent! 😅
AVTAK is a remake of GF where at least most people are effective at their jobs 😄
Roger finally decided to hang up his gun and Timothy Dalton was the new Bond. Replacing Roger’s comedic smugness with Connery/Lazenby dry humour and latent aggressiveness, laced with genuine affection for his colleagues, this is the closest portrayal of the Bond that Fleming created. There are still a couple of Moore-style touches which don’t gel well (fortunately the flying carpet sequence was left on the cutting room floor) but overall this is a vast improvement on the last two entries. The action scenes are exciting (including one with the James Bond theme being played). Unfortunately the plot isn’t much fun and seriously over plotted, and Joe Don Baker isn’t a very substantial villain (Brian Dennehy would have brought a vastly superior performance to the table).
John Glen is better directing more serious material than the comedy stuff from the previous two and he’s back to FYEO form. John Barry on his last Bond duties brings in a decent score. Apparently he and A-Ha didn’t get on and I can understand his frustration at having to work with a mediocre pop group basically known for one (decent) song. It was a poor decision by Cubby to bring them in. Caroline Bliss is the new Moneypenny and she brings an updated, if old fashioned, performance to the new Bond. John Terry is poor as Felix Leiter (he really doesn’t get much luck with his character casting).
The plusses heavily outweigh the minuses, Dalton is great, the cast are good (Baker and John Terry aside), the action is good. The plot is over complicated and not much fun. It’s good to see the series back in realistic mode, things were looking up and the future looked promising.
Ranking The Living Daylights is not an easy task, Dalton’s performance is better than any of the Moore entries but the movie lacks a sense of fun and there are three Moore’s that I would rather watch again so…
My favorite of the two Dalton films. This one improves immeasurably on AVTAK by going back to a much richer overall 'look' ala OP. The plot still feels underwritten but at least there's something there to latch onto and provide a necessary motivation for Bond to carry out a mission.
The good:
Again, better cinematography. The flat, cheap look of AVTAK is gone. There are several shots in the film that really stand out, especially when they get to Afghanistan.
Better direction overall. There's a better sense of geography to the action sequences here and things just generally flow better with more oomph.
Dalton looks the part. He carries the dramatic scenes with aplomb but also pulls off all of the physical requirements with ease. The stunt doubles aren't as frequent and they don't stand out as obviously here when compared to the latter Moore films.
Love the Aston Martin V8 Vantage. Probably my favorite overall Bond car.
Decent theme song. Not the best, not the worst.
Nice John Barry score, and I appreciate his use of more stylized 80s beats to update the sound somewhat.
The not so good:
Maryam D'Abo can't act. She has a couple of good moments here and there but she's pretty weak and is not convincing when miming playing a cello.
Joe Don Baker is terrible here. I wish they'd played his character 100% straight so that he felt like more of a threat. He should have been a serious counterpoint to Krabbe's aloofness. There's no tension with the character and that climactic battle between him and Bond has no teeth.
John Terry is the worst Felix Leiter. Thankfully he has minimal screentime here but he stands out as being quite bad.
There aren't many American Bond villains, are there. Is Blofeld in OHMSS meant to be American? It's never referenced, of course. Yaphet Kotto - he's very good, he has a bite to him. Oh, okay, Walken. Some of the Craig villains might be American, I don't know.
The one in this does seem like the one in Billion Dollar Brain, doesn't matter what their plan is (never quite sure what Don Baker's plan is) they don't look menacing in the context of a Bond film or similar. In the week that the so-called Special Relationship is being touted, there is some psychological reason why Brit types make the best villains, while in this context American bad guys seem like unruly kids. But you could have an East Coast Ivy League type as a Bond villain, no probs.
See, this is what I don't get almost immediately. Bond sees what happens... locates the dead 00 Lazenby lookalike. Then is checking the body of the khaki shot bloke - but they'd be separated by a precipice, how did he get from one to the other so quickly? The geography doesn't add up.
Timing a bit cute isn't it. What if the milkman arrived early before Yogi did his big speech? 'Er, hang on, not yet - I haven't told them yet!' Easy to overlook that Bond and the gang leave en masse immediately.
Odd to see a movie where 40 or so minutes in no sign of any black person yet. The MI6 crowd in particular all very white, old men.
'Take a look across the street...' Shades of The 39 Steps, which John Glen worked on. Oh no, hang on, no that was The Third Man wasn't it?
Shame Lee couldn't be around for this one, given Vienna features prominently, even standing in for Bratislava.
Barry's schmooze love music doesn't quite work for this, the score works better sometimes without the film. Dalton isn't quite the romantic hero he needs to be for this movie.
I like Ms D'abo, she has a touch of the Audrey Hepburn. She might have worked opposite Moore, if you look at the Cary Grant/Bogart/Astaire dynamic with Hepburn. One of her few younger leading men was our own Sean Connery in Robin and Marion.
Yogi's got a touch of the Jeffrey Epstein about him hasn't he? Then again we had Gislaine Maxwell on her yacht in the pre-credits.
Moore had that thing where he could get recognised by waiters and maitre d's around the world, Brosnan too - not Connery or Dalton.
'Suntan! All down my thighs!' Anyone remember that 1980s pop song of the Steve Wright era?
I suppose it has to be Saunders to die, they've run out of 00 agents to kill presumably.
Being Russian, that cellist is probably doped, this being the 1980s. Maybe that's why Yogi needs the drugs.
She's a bit of a tart isn't she, I mean he buys her some flash gear and she's all over him.
'Mein herr' That's a great song.
Oh god, it's Barry's soppy love theme again. Where's Harry Lime when you need him?
Dalton's hair receding like the Russians in Afghanistan during this film.
Bit of a fish-eye lens thing going on with his face in this, he looks a bit John Hannah.
Is this the longest Bond has gone without sex? I suppose there's the gal in the pre-creds. Moore could have done this movie on this basis.
This is an interesting plot, I have to give it that. It rewards one's interest even if with Bond films like this it never quite flows, it brings out the nitpicker in me. I can't help thinking an American director might have presented it better.
Ah well, enjoyed that everyone. Dalton claimed he didn't have much time to prepare for the role, did the story of that ever come out, his short notice hiring given Brosnan was forced to drop out? It never added up to me, surely Remington Steele could have let Brozzer go ahead with Bond and then reel him on for another season after when he as a verified big name?
The thing about this Bond film is that while there is some sex and some jokes, generally it doesn't authentically eminate from Bond. The one person to get their kit off is Pushkin's mistress, you never got the sense Dalton stripped well, he never looked tanned and buff and there is no gratuitous Mel Gibson-style shower scene with him, never that sense of liberation that sex offers in the Bond movies. Kara doesn't get her kit off either. The humour is sort of there but if it doesn't come from Bond, it just makes him look like the straight man not in on the joke.
The Siege of Sidney Sweeney on Talking Pictures now.
Comments
Connery looked pretty great in both TIME BANDITS and OUTLAND (which he filmed back-to-back).
I recently picked up from the library More Than Likely, the memoirs of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who wrote sitcoms The Likely Lads, Porridge and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet - they were hired as script doctors for NSNA.
A chapter is devoted to this. One thing; I understood that Connery had requested their participation. According to this, the pair met director Irvin Kershner while he was finishing up The Empire Strikes Back and about to start Bond; they promptly asked if he wanted a rewrite, he said yes, they heard nothing back. Weeks - presumably - went by and disillusioned by their current project, they got their agent to ask again if they needed any help, and they said yes. So that's one rubbish production, where the saviours of the film have to blag their way on to it, the team didn't even have the nouse to arrange that themselves.
Clement and La Frenais saved the movie and made it a blockbuster. I'm not saying it's any good from our point of view. I'm saying, the use of easy comedy in much of the early scenes, with M, then at Shrublands, or with Algy the Armourer, then the inclusion of Rowan Atkinson, all this stuff would have reassured cinema audiences that the film they were watching was okay and not hopeless.
That said... the pair are comedy writers. It's the writing of easy comedy that does it for the film, because there is no sense of genuine jeopardy at all. In Porridge, when the felons go after someone who's nicked a watch, you know they won't really get beaten up or knifed, it's still quite cosy. Nobody dies, and so it is in this Bond film, it's a comedy and the lack of teeth begins to pall. You also have to wonder if writers better suited to a 30 minute show can manage the two-hour dynamic - and this may be the reason the film falls off a cliff at the half-way point, that and the fact that the writers weren't brought on to do the action, and usually the second half of an action film has more action in it.
You'll likely know how the writers changed the opening of the film. In the original, 'As written it was a jousting tournament between a black knight and a white knight - a fake out where you think you're in Ye Olden Days, then find out it's a theme park in the present day.' Clement told the director that 'all they would see for five minutes would be two stunt men in armour beating the crap out of each other until eventually the victor took off his tin helmet and we aw who it was [Bond]. Kersh stroked his goatee still more.'
This is the only time that original opening has been sold to me. It would have made a big impact on the audience: Hey, I thought this was a Bond film?! Two knights on horseback against a sheer blue sky, like something from Olivier's Henry V! It would have been unlike anything else in a Bond movie even to this day. Not saying I disagree with Dick Clement, however. You would have to get around the idea that Connery's Bond would take part in a historical reenactment, and you simply couldn't. What is crazy however, is how the director seems to have had no real input or ideas of his own for this film, I know in recent years directors seem to have too much input, to the point of being co-writes, but even so... You do get this impression generally, that motorbike chase (where Bond in a helmet might have offered some symmetry with the original pre-credits), well, in Kershner's plan it was to actually fly over houses, I mean, really? When it was delivered, it didn't have the wings, so that part got canned.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Finally, Clement and La Frenais describe the writing mess that was NSNA. Incidentally, this wasn't the first Bond they'd worked on; they also helped with Moonraker on the scenes in Brazil but due to budgetary restrictions a lot of the Brazil stuff got canned.
Connery was furious as he'd expected the script to be sorted by this time but it hadn't - similar to what had happened to him on the movie Cuba. For a man who didn't suffer fools, he seems a fool himself to sign on before he was satisfied with the script, but then his main motive was £3m payday, so we should all be so foolish. Says Clement re the script stipulations, 'nothing in the film could echo the style and hallmark of Saltzman and Broccoli's previous Bond movies. A clause was inserted saying the director could 'only shoot the book as written'. So one screenplay had been delivered that was almost a scene-by-scene copy of the book. It was, of course, hopeless. Francis Ford Coppola, brother to the producers' wife, Talia Shire, had allegedly written another version, though we never saw it. Every new scene and to be okayed by the producer, the director and the star. This much was fairly normal but then had to be scrutinised by the insurers, in constant terror of provoking a lawsuit.'
As for, their re-written opener, Bond on a training exercise, you may also know it won a round of applause in post-production, accompanied as it was by a ticking stopwatch to induce tension. This was ruined when the song instead was played over it - the writers are rightly annoyed at this, but don't seem to realise they'd fallen foul of another contractual issue - the song had to be given to Herb Albert (why was this? Did Michel Legrand write it anyway?) and it was so duff you had to bury it over the opening credits.
With all this in mind it's no surprise the film turned out the way it did. I wouldn't mind reading Lorenzo Semple's script actually. (Or Coppola's). But if you look up this film on Wikipedia, it's all praise - you'd think it was one of the best Bond movies, and if I recall there's no real mention of Clement and La Frenais' contribution.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I expect going by my Colonel Sun thread, a couple of you are going to pop and say 'Do you know, Napoleon, you've convinced me to sit down and rewatch this film!'
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Really interesting stuff, thank you.
@Napoleon Plural that's not gonna happen...
Honestly, the opening hostage training bit is the only part of the film that really works, duff song and all.
A decent retrospective on A View To A Kill here:
and here:
https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/opinion-a-view-to-a-kill-under-appreciation?id=3900
Roger Moore 1927-2017
For my part, I very much enjoyed A View to a Kill when it came out, it really hit the spot. True, it's a bit of a victory lap for Rog but it hits the right notes - there's plenty of wit and interest in the early stages of the movie. Some great use of locations. Moore looks old in some scenes but in others - in Paris, for instance, he looks great, the cooler clime seems to agree with him.
I'm a bit mystified why Moonraker is allowed to be such a guilty pleasure while this one isn't. May Day is surely more plausible an assassin than Jaws, though I like them both. I much prefer her and Zorin to the villains in the previous two movies. We're back to a linear, straightforward plot. Everything is more streamlined, cooler. True, the cinematography looks a bit plain, especially in comparison with Moonraker, but that was very much the mid-80s for you, they tried to make things look almost less lush, less cinematic to gain realism. The music has a kick to it.
Perhaps they could have made Frisco a bit warmer and sunnier looking.
One quibble I noticed decades down the line is that Bond can basically have Zorin arrested very early on, certainly after he murders Tibbett, and also after the fire in Frisco's City Hall. Instead, it's like he forgets he's a British agent and has to be a Hitchcock hero who can't rely on the police at all, but is rather pitted against them. I don't find the comparisons in Goldfinger very useful, the stars and locations are different generally, but at least in that film there's a reason Bond can't raise the alarm once he knows for sure the villain is a bad guy - he's being held hostage. That said, that film also has problems in the end; if Bond is able to tip off Pussy Galore about the attack, who in turn is able to tip off the authorities, why do the US authorities let it go ahead and very nearly succeed?
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Yeah I have thought before that the end of AVTAK is awkward as you have to ignore that Bond could just call the police, especially as he's heading to the mine at the end, in his fire engine complete with emergency radio!
That said, that film also has problems in the end; if Bond is able to tip off Pussy Galore about the attack, who in turn is able to tip off the authorities, why do the US authorities let it go ahead and very nearly succeed?
Although it's not said in the film, I think a decent explanation for that is that they're now aware that Goldfinger has a nuclear bomb and their top priority is to secure that: they can't be sure it's at his ranch so they need to let him bring it out into the open. Of course they then balls it up pretty badly: only getting to the device with three/seven more ticks to go, and they manage to let Goldfinger himself escape. Everyone (including Bond) in this film is borderline incompetent! 😅
AVTAK is a remake of GF where at least most people are effective at their jobs 😄
THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS (1987)
Roger finally decided to hang up his gun and Timothy Dalton was the new Bond. Replacing Roger’s comedic smugness with Connery/Lazenby dry humour and latent aggressiveness, laced with genuine affection for his colleagues, this is the closest portrayal of the Bond that Fleming created. There are still a couple of Moore-style touches which don’t gel well (fortunately the flying carpet sequence was left on the cutting room floor) but overall this is a vast improvement on the last two entries. The action scenes are exciting (including one with the James Bond theme being played). Unfortunately the plot isn’t much fun and seriously over plotted, and Joe Don Baker isn’t a very substantial villain (Brian Dennehy would have brought a vastly superior performance to the table).
John Glen is better directing more serious material than the comedy stuff from the previous two and he’s back to FYEO form. John Barry on his last Bond duties brings in a decent score. Apparently he and A-Ha didn’t get on and I can understand his frustration at having to work with a mediocre pop group basically known for one (decent) song. It was a poor decision by Cubby to bring them in. Caroline Bliss is the new Moneypenny and she brings an updated, if old fashioned, performance to the new Bond. John Terry is poor as Felix Leiter (he really doesn’t get much luck with his character casting).
The plusses heavily outweigh the minuses, Dalton is great, the cast are good (Baker and John Terry aside), the action is good. The plot is over complicated and not much fun. It’s good to see the series back in realistic mode, things were looking up and the future looked promising.
Ranking The Living Daylights is not an easy task, Dalton’s performance is better than any of the Moore entries but the movie lacks a sense of fun and there are three Moore’s that I would rather watch again so…
OHMSS - TB - FRWL - GF - YOLT - DN - FYEO - TSWLM - LALD - TLD - DAF - AVTAK - TMWTGG - MR - OP
Copy/paste from last year with minor edits:
THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
My favorite of the two Dalton films. This one improves immeasurably on AVTAK by going back to a much richer overall 'look' ala OP. The plot still feels underwritten but at least there's something there to latch onto and provide a necessary motivation for Bond to carry out a mission.
The good:
The not so good:
Overall, it's a really solid entry.
There aren't many American Bond villains, are there. Is Blofeld in OHMSS meant to be American? It's never referenced, of course. Yaphet Kotto - he's very good, he has a bite to him. Oh, okay, Walken. Some of the Craig villains might be American, I don't know.
The one in this does seem like the one in Billion Dollar Brain, doesn't matter what their plan is (never quite sure what Don Baker's plan is) they don't look menacing in the context of a Bond film or similar. In the week that the so-called Special Relationship is being touted, there is some psychological reason why Brit types make the best villains, while in this context American bad guys seem like unruly kids. But you could have an East Coast Ivy League type as a Bond villain, no probs.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Klaxon alert - for UK residents, note The Living Daylights is showing on ITV4 at 9pm tonight (Wed)...
Roger Moore 1927-2017
'You're late 007 - by 5 minutes!'
'There's still time...'
Roger Moore 1927-2017
See, this is what I don't get almost immediately. Bond sees what happens... locates the dead 00 Lazenby lookalike. Then is checking the body of the khaki shot bloke - but they'd be separated by a precipice, how did he get from one to the other so quickly? The geography doesn't add up.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Some ropey acting early on from both men. Dalton making heavy weather of it.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Barry's music saves the day.
Never really got the whole pipeline to the West thing, it was off my radar then and still is now.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Julie T Wallace makes her entrance too soon. She really belongs in a Brosnan film, like GoldenEye or TWINE.
Stunt casting really, the series does that from time to time, get someone topical in. The comedy doesn't quite work with the heavy Barry score.
Q and M clocking up air miles.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Shades of 'Welcome aboard 007' from YOLT when Yogi emerges from the Pig.
Moneypenny as cliche. Bit of a large safe house isn't it.
This Bond buys fois gras - no wonder Rog didn't take to him.
They don't have milk floats today do they. They'd use a Deliveroo man nowadays.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Timing a bit cute isn't it. What if the milkman arrived early before Yogi did his big speech? 'Er, hang on, not yet - I haven't told them yet!' Easy to overlook that Bond and the gang leave en masse immediately.
Odd to see a movie where 40 or so minutes in no sign of any black person yet. The MI6 crowd in particular all very white, old men.
'Indy!'
Roger Moore 1927-2017
'Take a look across the street...' Shades of The 39 Steps, which John Glen worked on. Oh no, hang on, no that was The Third Man wasn't it?
Shame Lee couldn't be around for this one, given Vienna features prominently, even standing in for Bratislava.
Barry's schmooze love music doesn't quite work for this, the score works better sometimes without the film. Dalton isn't quite the romantic hero he needs to be for this movie.
I like Ms D'abo, she has a touch of the Audrey Hepburn. She might have worked opposite Moore, if you look at the Cary Grant/Bogart/Astaire dynamic with Hepburn. One of her few younger leading men was our own Sean Connery in Robin and Marion.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Wai Lin over on BBC4 now.
Missed the best bloody action scene for the snooker. Great.
Watching Dalton do comedy is like watching Peter Finch's Farmer Boldwood attempt to jolly along his staff at his wedding party to Bathsheba Everdene.
Is that supposed to be Hitler?
I keep expecting I Dream of Jeannie to pop up at any point.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Yogi's got a touch of the Jeffrey Epstein about him hasn't he? Then again we had Gislaine Maxwell on her yacht in the pre-credits.
Moore had that thing where he could get recognised by waiters and maitre d's around the world, Brosnan too - not Connery or Dalton.
'Suntan! All down my thighs!' Anyone remember that 1980s pop song of the Steve Wright era?
I suppose it has to be Saunders to die, they've run out of 00 agents to kill presumably.
Being Russian, that cellist is probably doped, this being the 1980s. Maybe that's why Yogi needs the drugs.
She's a bit of a tart isn't she, I mean he buys her some flash gear and she's all over him.
'Mein herr' That's a great song.
Oh god, it's Barry's soppy love theme again. Where's Harry Lime when you need him?
Dalton's hair receding like the Russians in Afghanistan during this film.
Bit of a fish-eye lens thing going on with his face in this, he looks a bit John Hannah.
Is this the longest Bond has gone without sex? I suppose there's the gal in the pre-creds. Moore could have done this movie on this basis.
This is an interesting plot, I have to give it that. It rewards one's interest even if with Bond films like this it never quite flows, it brings out the nitpicker in me. I can't help thinking an American director might have presented it better.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Couldn't they kill Bond instead, it would solve a lot of problems.
Yay! Some black people at last. They're beggars. Hasn't evolved much since Dr No - at least the three blind men were assassins.
Leiter's blonde friend was in Your Rang M'Lord as the dapper lesbian.
Is Pushkin's lady friend the hooker in the hotel room? What's going on there, she's doing the grieving wife bit.
'Not if the party's still on...' Farmer Boldwood at a party, sounds good. Judge Reinhold would have made a good Leiter.
Dalton's got that Michael Burke fruity can I sell you a gold coin look about him.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Bond hasn't had so little sex since Diamonds are Forever.
Ah, it's the scoop truck thing deflecting bullets used in Casino Royale.
Barry's music never lightens things up does it.
Where's Bin Laden when you need him? Oh, there he is!
Where does a Russian learn to ride a horse? Handy with her fists it turns out.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
But crap at flying planes.
Necros could just switch to hanging on to the rope, not Bond's boot.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Some proper tension here.
I don't suppose there any more potential overnight plane hijackers there? Wouldn't do much for the special relationship.
'I just hope we can make Pakistan.' Why not, Bin Laden did.
'There's no place to land'. Except this bloody great flat section that comes out of nowhere.
Seems Bond had time to get a haircut before giving the villain a haircut.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
'We had some trouble at the airport.' Not for the last time, Mr Laden.
The Pretenders had a thing going on in the late 80s didn't they. Don't Get Me Wrong was a banger.
My sympathies are with A-ha over their conflict with Herr Barry however. (He dubbed them Nazis.)
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Ah well, enjoyed that everyone. Dalton claimed he didn't have much time to prepare for the role, did the story of that ever come out, his short notice hiring given Brosnan was forced to drop out? It never added up to me, surely Remington Steele could have let Brozzer go ahead with Bond and then reel him on for another season after when he as a verified big name?
The thing about this Bond film is that while there is some sex and some jokes, generally it doesn't authentically eminate from Bond. The one person to get their kit off is Pushkin's mistress, you never got the sense Dalton stripped well, he never looked tanned and buff and there is no gratuitous Mel Gibson-style shower scene with him, never that sense of liberation that sex offers in the Bond movies. Kara doesn't get her kit off either. The humour is sort of there but if it doesn't come from Bond, it just makes him look like the straight man not in on the joke.
The Siege of Sidney Sweeney on Talking Pictures now.
Roger Moore 1927-2017